Four days will fly by the Earth asteroid QE2

May 31, 2013 asteroid 1998 QE2, the size is nine times the ship Queen Elizabeth 2 (2.7 km), pass near the Earth at a distance of 5.8 million kilometers, which is 15 times more than the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Though this space visitor is not interested scientists and astronomers as a "hazardous asteroid" fans to observe the celestial bodies he would be. Fortunately, this space visitor does not carry any threat.





"Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be a good target for radar at Goldstone and Arecibo, so we want to make a large number of elegant pictures in high resolution, which could reveal a wealth of surface of the asteroid," — said the astronomer lance Benner, the principal investigator Goldstone Observatory NASA.





As close to our planet the asteroid will fly on may 31 at 1:59 Pacific time (20:59 UTC). It's the closest passing of QE2, at least in the next two centuries. The asteroid was discovered on 19 August 1998, astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of technology.

2036 near Earth fly by of asteroid Apophis. This "baby" size is much smaller 1998 QE2.

Source: /users/413